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My Very Excellent Hair-Razing Adventure

A few days ago I went to the local fitness center to work out. It was a wet, gray day and I wanted the exercise I knew I wouldn’t get just walking around town under an umbrella. So, while this is not my favorite thing to do in the world, I went and was glad for it. You never know when you’ll get inspired! Until you do.

 

My exercise routine is not very exciting. I walk on the treadmill at varying paces until I’ve logged 3 miles, about 45 minutes. It’s boring but I distract myself by plugging in my iPhone. I love listening to talks by Marvin Anderson, one of my mentors, and it happens that the talks last as long as my exercise. I especially like Marvin’s series on Creating and on this day listened to the first of eight lectures on the topic. I’ve already heard this series several times but you never know when something sinks in. Until it does.

 

I do know something very creative happened that day. As I was in the changing room getting ready to go home, a woman came from outside and started fluffing her hair out with her hands. (In cold climes, we women walk around all winter with a case of hat-head, hair constantly in need of—something—due to constantly being smushed by headgear.) Talking to a friend who was around the corner out of my sight, she was wondering aloud about her hair. “I just cut my own hair last night,” she explained. “I have no idea how it looks.”

 

“It looks great,” I blurted out, because it did look really good and she deserved to know it. Also, as she’d done something I was sure I’d never have the courage to do, I envied her.

 

I dislike going to a hairdresser even more than going to the gym. Because my curly hair has seemed for a lifetime totally uncooperative to any sense of style, I’ve always deferred to professionals to “do something with it.” Since I was 5 years old and made my mother mad by taking scissors to my locks, I’ve never come close to entertaining the notion that I could cut my own hair. Aren’t there rules about that sort of thing?

 

(Full disclosure: I had actually started trimming my bangs a few months ago; however, doing so required me to apologize to my hairdresser and beg forgiveness the next time I saw her.)

 

I left the gym energized, not so much by the exercise, but simply by hearing about this woman’s hair-razing adventure. I wanted one of my own. Arriving home a few minutes later I grabbed a sheet from the linen closet and a pair of sharp scissors from my desk. Then, spreading the sheet on the bathroom floor in front of the Victorian standing mirror, I started. It was easy—snipping off the bits I didn’t want, first on one side, then on the other. A little here, a little more there. In less than ten minutes I’d created the best haircut I’d had in about 30 years.

 

Impulsively taking off hunks of my hair was a small foolish thing, but by doing it I was completely liberated from my own belief that I couldn’t or shouldn’t. It turns out there actually are no rules! Later, on Facebook, I learned that quite a few women (including Frida Kahlo) cut their own hair. I never knew, but now I do! (Plus, I got a haircut I wanted!)

 

“Insulate your foolish self from sensible persons,” painter Brian Rutenberg writes to fellow artists. “If you’re lucky, that insulation will last a lifetime, and you’ll produce meaningful work.”

 

It sounds good, but I wonder, aren’t those sensible persons (both outer and inner) looking out for me, keeping me safe from harm, making sure my hair looks okay? Yes, but in my artist’s heart and soul I know better. The real harm to my essential self lies in too much safety, too little risking the adventure into the mysterious Unknown, and too often thwarting the artistic impulse. Is anyone going to die because someone puts pink and red next to each other on a canvas (even though, when I was growing up, someone told me those colors clash)?

 

No, I believe Brian’s really nailed it:  We artists don’t need to be more sensible with our work any more than I need to be more careful with my hair. After all, a blank canvas doesn’t know what it means to be practical. Why should you be anything other than foolish with it? So, I ask myself, what meaningful work would you create today if you didn’t have some sensible voice suggesting you do otherwise? Scratching my curly head, scissors close at hand, I get to work.

 

 

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